Meet Juliane Morris | Marketing Specialist, Graphic Designer & Photographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Juliane Morris and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Juliane, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
I am from a San Gabriel Valley city called Covina, which is about 20 miles east of downtown Los Angeles and a part of Los Angeles County. My childhood was a marvelous suburban blend of cozy neighborhood and intriguing nature. As a child, I was an active adventurous child sort — bike riding, kite flying, creek wandering, Sweetgum and orange tree climbing, and other normal 1970s and 1980s relatively safe troublemaking like ding-dong-ditching, prank-calling and TPing houses.

My time as a young child and developing adolescent was really a time of innocence, where friends shared harmless secrets, where families shared meals, and where Halloween night was an amazing adventure around the neighborhood and you knew many of the adults who answered the doors, and their children were in your Trick-or-Treat ‘gang’ running door to door. In my neighborhood, called Mesa Oaks, there was always a Fourth of July parade around the figure-8 neighborhood, which was comprised of maybe 100 or fewer homes, and set away a bit up a hill on a higher plateau of land, The Fourth of July parade was to me as a child, and year after year as I grew into my own person there, a unified patriotic celebration of gratitude and joy and hope.

My father nurtured an awe-seeking of nature in me. Hiking and trips that he and my mother plans to places all around where mountains and valleys delighted, deserts and beaches stressed and relaxed, and where ski trips and water sports engaged us with nature even more deeply.

My mother inspired appreciation of the arts, floral and plant life, and history including art history. A fan of Elizabethan-era related art and history, a patient and skilled needlepoint master (with more than 10 mythological creatures (think phoenix, unicorn) and medieval-like settings, depicted in fine large needlepoints framed throughout my childhood home. Mom tended to yard irises and other flowering ground and potted plants like camelias and gardenias, giving me an array of beauty and creative nature scenery and fantasy to enjoy in and outside our home.

Our family enjoyed traditional extended family gatherings, with stories of our some of our family heritage and history, with some belly-busting laughter at times, and also somber and serious times that came. It was through extended family visits and talks that I learned my paternal grandfather, while an engineer by profession, greatly enjoyed pen design work and also photography. I saw artistic creation in my maternal grandmother’s cooking and baking. These visuals drew me in and I appreciated human creativity and expression, and knowing family and friends who were creative helped spark my own exploration to discover ways I could also be creative and visually and in written form express myself..

Our family also enjoyed seasonal church activity and participation, and Norman Rockwell like time-honored rituals of Dad reading, “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” at the fireplace hearth to us children for many years, My mother snapped a picture one Christmas Eve of my brother and I, seated and bookending at my father’s feet, while he sat on the hearth between us with a book on this lap, obviously reading it to us. That photo is a gem to me.

My younger sister came along and Dad built a legitimate tree house for us in a huge oak tree in our front yard. A wooden rung, rope ladder provided access from the ground if you were willing to climb straight up to the summit on high, where a wooden-floored, safety-railed, open-aired overlook awaited. Mom and Dad provided these sorts of physical opportunities to challenge oneself, where we as children need to take some measured risk and have to do some work to succeed and accomplish some reward. There is also a picture of the three of us children in the open tree house, scanning to the visual vast beyond. This is another captured moment in time that I treasure.

Where our memories may not hold the experience, photography has always had that known gift to capture some objective information, and our memory subjectively interprets it, right?

Also, my parents and their friends were also continually active in helping those in the community who needed assistance or help, so volunteering and looking for ways to help those in need was a core part of my life from a very young age. This feeling and nurturing became a part of who I am — community-focused, trying to locate and connect areas of common ground, looking for the positive, working for progressive better ways of meeting needs and making meaningful connections, and celebrating people, relationships, and adventuring to discover and appreciate beauty and nature.

Much of that goodness of childhood resonates with me still and is reflected in my work and play in creative production that I enjoy now as an independent marketing specialist. I consider myself a graphic designer, marketing consultant, photographer/video editor and advertising contractor.

When I was 15 years old I wanted for a gift (for Christmas or birthday I suppose) a camera. My parents gave me a Disc camera (perhaps the KODAK Disc 4000 Camera) which I think took about 15 pictures per “film” disc and that was it. Oh, the limits by today’s digital photography empire. That first experience with desired photography hobby helped shape and spur on further my passion for photography. Talk to anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you I take a LOT of pictures (and video in fact), for my own enjoyment, and to look back on to enjoy again and again, and also to share with others who appreciate it. When people comment on my photography now about how it allows them to journey somewhere they cannot be or how it makes them smile to see captured scene or spot of beauty or interest in a new creative way, well that is just what it’s all about for me.

Also when I was 15, I started my first job, and have been working ever since. I worked in food service at Raging Waters waterslide park in San Dimas, California. I learned more about teamwork, meeting expectations responsibility, integrity in the workplace, being reliable and consistent, a little bit of economic business know-how, and of course customer service. I experienced the benefits of doing a job well, like the personal feeling of accomplishment, the expressed satisfaction of a supervisor, how to listen to constructive criticism and also how to orally defend myself when appropriate, the perks of a paycheck, and fringe benefits like having permission to break some of the rules after hours with friends like having a train of people going down the slides or going backwards down the slides. OK, maybe I wouldn’t be able to call that “permission” but employee after-hours was a great time!

In my childhood, through my neighborhood, public school and lots of extracurricular activity, and then beginning to work when I was 15, I was also around people of all types, where differences in race and heritage, religion and world view, and socio-economic status were a regular part of my environment. This exposure to diversity helped shape my openness to people and ideas different from myself. Whether nature or nurture, people will say about me that I am very inquisitive and enjoy hearing people’s stories and dig a bit deeper each time we meet. I probably would have been a good journalist or documentary-maker. Anyway, a natural sort of triggered compassion resulted from that kind of experience with diverse individuals and groups of people, who were my friends, teammates in sports, or even with groups I volunteered within serving yet other groups of people in and around our area in San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles.

My background, the one my loving parents provided to me in my upbringing and through our extended family and closer friendships with other families, is truly the source of how I became who I am today. It is through their parental love and support with important boundaries that they together and steadfastly provided opportunities and encouragement to try different things and spur me on to become the best I could reasonably be with the different pursuits I adventured toward.

That kind of upbringing may have different results with different children’s personalities and whatnot. For me, my nature-nurture makeup became over time who I am these past many decades now: what others will commonly describe as a fun-loving connector of people, an “Energizer Bunny” (called this by too many to recall), as well as an independent, self-starter, risk-taking, assertive and confident, thrill-seeking, service-oriented, creative-adoring sort of gal.

To this, my parents have my source and fount, and I am so grateful to have them both in my life still, and to have recently (9 months ago) moved much closer to them here in San Diego. As a parent myself, I hope I’ve inspired and instilled some of the same values into my own children’s lives.

I’ll share a couple favorite quotes here the sum up how my background and upbringing impact who I am today:

About compassion and being neighborly-minded:

“So in all that you do, in all of your life, I wish you the strength and the grace to make the choices which will allow you and your neighbor to become the best of whoever you are.” – Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood

About helping others be their best and being available when they need you most:

“Friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life. And thanks to a benevolent arrangement, the greater part of life is sunshine.” – Thomas Jefferson

About balancing good planning with risk-taking for me:

“Worry is like a rocking chair – it gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.” – Dorothy Galyean

“Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!” – Jane Austen

“Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet.” – African Proverb

“If you chase two rabbits, you will lose them both.” – attributed to Leonard Nimoy

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
My little life journey that seems to be surrounded by nature, graphic design artwork, writing, editing and photography, and related design work, began with the subjects of my loved ones who inspired me to want to capture a moment in time, write up what was happening in the moment in anticipation of future reflections.

I’m not a patient and sit-still type of person who you’ll find scrapbooking, but I did jot some narratives next to pictures in the children’s “baby books” which are really just 3-ring binders with top loading vinyl sheets with photos taped to card stock and some hand-written note of what was going on in the picture — for that subjective interpretative part that’s not included in the objective photo perspective. If you’ve been reading along, that means my mother’s painstaking patient sitting needlepointing is likely not an inherited trait for me.

I do seem to have some patience when it comes to computer graphic design work and photography thought. First, photographing friends and family members, and then my children from newborns onward into their now near 22- and 25-years old stages, and they still tolerate my photographing them, although I know it can be frustrating and cause pauses if we’re somewhere and I want to take a pause to photograph something I see. Their support, and patience, in both being subjects and in enduring my hobby, has helped me become a better photographer and designer. In my design work, I often incorporate photography with graphic design and typography/caption overlay to tell a story, send a message or call to action.

Many moons ago, maybe in the last 1990s I wanted to get into wedding photography so offered to shoot for free some candid shots at a friend of a friend’s wedding so long as the hired professional photographer wouldn’t mind. That was my IN. Those shots became my portfolio. From there, the internet was new so I placed my new wedding and event photography business there, entered (and WON!) new online photography contests, and enjoyed word of mouth referrals and recommendations to grow my photography business. I would meet prospective clients at the local Barnes & Noble back then to review my printed portfolio, talk about their needs and wants and negotiate a contract, which included a free engagement session, which helped us each be more comfortable with one another before the big day and also served as another touchpoint for any new ideas or polished planning.

I will say the “digital darkroom” of Adobe Photoshop saved me a few times when my shot wasn’t quite right but the editing could creative and revive the parts that needed help! I enjoyed shooting the events as much as I enjoyed quiet (and yes patient hours flying by) of photo editing and organizing, and deleting what wasn’t good, and making different versions of the same shot with creative liberties to enhance different aspects like blurring out some areas or adding a ray of sunshine and so on. On bride wanted me to remove her visible tattoos. That was a chore, and she was very pleased with the results.

I was a wedding photographer when my children were very young, so on weekend Saturdays Daddy would watch them while I spent some hours shooting a wedding I’d booked, mostly by bridge and groom referral or wedding guests who saw me in action and had their own upcoming weddings or family events, and as the internet was new back when I started shooting weddings. I started professional photography when digital cameras became new and affordable so film wasn’t a concern and I could shoot all I wanted without worrying about wasting film and development costs. It was really an ideal time to get into it. You can see my old wedding portfolio here: https://julianeluskphotographyportfolio.shutterfly.com/1018

Here is a video slide show of my early portfolio work here:

and video slide show of my Wedding photography here:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhjK-kdP9kA
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks0Is5oUs40
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP8R5nOUK6A
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xhR-pwRHxo

Later, through my jobs in marketing and design work, I decided to try to strum up business on the side and had heard in an NPR radio business news piece about a new platform for freelancers called Upwork. I checked them out and joined. Today, my Upwork statistics are revealing about my last 6 years with them. I’ve worked 333 total jobs and can boast a 100% “success rating” based on the independent Upwork client review process. My Upwork statistics also state that I have 54% long-term clients with repeat business over an extended period of time, compared with the short-term, one-off projects for which I’m sometimes hired. On Upwork, and with my own business here in San Diego, Morris Crown Marketing, I offer marketing consultation, graphic design asset building, social media strategy and campaigns, writing/editing, SEO, targeted advertising opportunities and options, website review and recommendations, photography/video editing, and print marketing collateral for mailing, leave behinds, take aways and vendor fairs and events.

I will say that as a business owner who contracts with different clients, sometimes clients may be under the impression that they are your only client so managing expectations is a business owner’s responsibility. Being a business owner takes time and energy that are not otherwise required performing a 9-5 desk job. But the rewards are invaluable to a person like me. Having added freedom in selecting my clients and choosing the kind of work I want to do, along with the added income and many more enjoyable challenges set before me to resolve are how I thrive in life. Much else is more rewarding than delighting a client with a solution they could not have imagined. That’s a kind of magic for me to create for those who end up feeling that way. It feels like a gift I’m growing, and being used the way it’s supposed to be used in life.

It is challenging to strike the right work-life balance sometimes, and it can change season to season or month to month, so that’s just a constant teeter-totter to stay on top of and have good time and project management skills to master as well as good communication skills to be on the same page with everyone.

I am really into nutrition, health, exercise and trying to get enough sleep. My personal faith and world view helps me stay focused and balanced too, but the doing is not always as easy as saying. Connecting with friends and other loved ones, and also having a healthy dose of alone and quiet time (which my social media followers sometimes say they can’t even imagine me having), are what I need to be well.

What has really been special to me is how both in Indiana where I was before moving here in early 2022, and here in San Diego, my marketing, design and photography/video editing work is spilling over beautifully into my volunteer work here in San Diego. I’m now serving as the Vice President of Marketing/Communications for FOCUS, The Friends of Children United Society (FOCUS), (https://focus-sdkids.org/), a 40+ year old non-profit which serves to meet the needs of San Diego’s most vulnerable children and teens — https://focus-sdkids.org/causes/. I have been creating digital and print assets to support our efforts, and produced photography, videos and paid advertising campaigns to increase membership, donations and general awareness of the FOCUS vision. Additionally, the Coronado Flower Show sometimes uses my photography of Coronado Island florals in their social media and I was asked to serve on their marketing committee as well. I also provide at a much-reduced rate the social media management and related assets for a global hunger organization I support called Outside the Bowl (http://www.outsidethebowl.org/), who found me and with whom I partnered when I moved here to San Diego. It is just nice to be able to offer some of these skills and assets to help non-profit organizations that are aligned with my values.

For my own brand of Morris Crown Marketing, I am hoping to bring a next level of care and strategy that align well with a business or organizational vision. My years of experience, creative solution-finding, connections and resourcefulness have really helped equip me to help others when and how I can, when and how my clients need such help and partnership.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
While I was born and raised in the Los Angeles area and went to UCLA for college, I moved away from California at age 22 with my UCLA sweetheart and new husband to attend the University of Notre Dame. We thought we would be away from our California families for five years. Five years turned into 31 years!

As a new empty-nester with successfully adulting children, I returned to California in February 2022, to San Diego, where my parents had retired to from the LA area 22 years ago, and where I and my children have been visiting them for the 22 years they have lived in San Diego. So, I knew a bit about San Diego from annual and more often visits over a couple of decades, not to mention visiting the area for childhood vacations here.

My attraction to nature fuels where I love going the most in the area. Well, let me clarify, nature and FOOD.

When friends visit me here or when my adult children visit, and when I am on my own venturing out which I very often enjoy, you’ll find us at places in the city like Cabrillo National Monument, visually scouring the tidepools and carefully claiming around the rock formations at low tide. After a hike there, enjoying Point Loma restaurants right there would be on the agenda, and might include Mitch’s Seafood, Jimmy’s Famous American Tavern or a crab sandwich or ceviche from Point Loma Seafoods right there on the water. There’s also a really fun Tiki ride called Tiki Time Bay Tours, right out of Point Loma docks, and that I went on with my contracted marketing position with my Johnson & Johnson Innovation team for a team-building outing a few months ago. Highly recommended!

The same goes for the glorious La Jolla area, along the shoreline trail there, and the shores where the sea lions, pelicans and other birds make their home. Favorite dining there for me includes NINE-TEN Restaurant & Bar, The Taco Stand and George’s at the Cove.

Coronado Island is an absolute favorite of mine, where the beach and rocks by the Hotel del Coronado is a regular photography spot for me, capturing seagulls, sandpipers, sunsets and sometimes stunning silhouettes of people at play, or in love, or both. In the cooler months, visiting the ice-skating rink at the Hotel del is a delight, whether participating as a skater or just enjoying watching people there. If I’m walking around Coronado, my favorite places to dine are the Brigantine, Peohe’s, The Henry, Swaddee Thai Restaurant of Coronado, Bluewater Boathouse Seafood Grill, and Coronado Brewing Company for their amazing salad options with Grilled Wahoo added, and an Orange Ave Wit beer.

The San Diego Botanical Garden in Encinitas is another nature area I was lucky to discover a few months ago, where you can walk through all sorts of terrain and feel like you are in different parts of the world based on the masterful planning and planting you can experience there. If you’re in Encinitas you’ve got to check out Dave’s Rock Garden right there in the middle of a residential area with a really cool story of how it was created and visually stunning to see in person and reflect on what you’re taking in with what you’ll find on the thousands of painted rocks there. Hungry? The Taco Stand in Encinitas is one of the best authentic Mexican food places I have found. Before or after that, and perhaps better in the earlier morning due to possible crowds or heat, there’s an easy and surreal hour-long hike nearby in Solana called Annie’s Canyon Trail, about an hour of fun and amazement. Trust me!

I love exploring the Maritime Museum with the history of the Star of Indiana and other naval and historic ferry vessels there, although I miss walking through the Russian submarine that was docked there for years but slowly disintegrated. The Midway is a must-see for an unforgettable experience. One of the best dining choices in that area is Seneca Trattoria with incredible fish and other entrees, delicious cocktails and a stunning view overlooking the maritime area.

Taking visiting friends to nearby Little Italy a hop, skip and jump from there is a quaint and fun visit. There’s a farmer’s market, occasional art shows, and a choice dining experience at Solunto Ristorante & Bakery. I recently enjoyed their rack of lamb and have heard their bakery is one of the best in the area.

When my 21-year-old daughter visited me this summer, I took her to Temecula to enjoy Oak Mountain Winery –“The Cave”, which sits 104 feet below ground and is the first and only subterranean mined wine cave in Southern California. Our tour guide was great, and the wines and plates of food that accompanied our wine-tasting tour made it a remarkably educational and mouth-watering experience.

Next, Old Town San Diego remains a favorite place to visit for some gorgeous visuals, immersion history and delicious food offerings. Casa Guadalajara still has one of my favorite menus and setting. The blood orange margarita is my favorite, and when I asked for something not on the menu they accommodated. .I asked for their cheese quesadilla but to add grilled mushrooms and spinach. Delicious. I suggested they add it to the menu and name it the “J(H)uliana Especial”. It’s not on the menu yet, but… I am persistent.

For nightlife, I take visiting friends and family to the Gaslamp District which provides some awesome entertainment and partying. On weekends we find live music throughout the streets, and Bang Bang San Diego is a great place for sushi, For fun after dinner, check out these other favorite places of fine to enjoy an adventure of an evening: The Tipsy Crow, Prohibition Lounge and Whiskey Girl.

For art, culture, history, museum, architecture, and food, the winner-winner of all for me would be Balboa Park, which has been called “a cultural oasis that includes 17 museums, gardens galore and the world-famous San Diego Zoo. At 1,200 acres, Balboa Park is one of North America’s most iconic urban parks and a must-see on any visit to San Diego.” I agree, and the setting has been a wonderful place to practice my photography while I’m enjoying all there is to enjoy there. The Inez Grant Parker Memorial Rose Garden is an award-winning All-American Rose Selection Display Garden containing over 2,400 rose bushes in 180 varieties., and the Kate O. Sessions Cactus Garden is a marvel. I also love to visit the San Diego Natural History Museum (the “NAT”).

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
When I moved to San Diego in February 2022, I immediately started to pursue social media to locate the sort of groups and connections that would serve my proclivity for adventure, my business prospecting, and to locate those with whom my hobbies of hiking, kayaking/SUP, Latin dancing, photography, art and museums, and food-enjoyment might mesh. I kept seeing photos from a particular person across a few different social media platforms. It was Joel Ortiz, a local, in-demand and expert photographer, whose photography I was immediately drawn. At some point I commented on one of Joel’s photos venue locations as it featured remarkably cool lighting. We ended up having a conversation online about it, then connected in person about photography.

I mentioned to Joel that I used to be a professional wedding photographer but had been out of using a pro camera for at least 15 years and could he recommend one. He did, and then we trained on it together. Joel’s demonstrated photography expertise, openness to discuss all matters photography-related (and video and drone too!), and his patient teaching with me have turned into a special friendship that I know he shares with many people around San Diego.

Joel and I have worked together for a few events, which is always a blast, and every time we get together to shoot, I learn something good and new about the technology and art of photography, and something good and new about Joel. He is a dear man, and a dear friend to have. I am so grateful we connected last Spring and regularly get together to shoot distinct locations, times and events for fun (and some for business of course too!). Joel’s years of working with his clients, for some over decades, capturing important family and organizational milestones, and also just fun times along life’s path, are a testimony to his relationship-building and the ongoing quality of his photography endeavors.

I still get a huge smile on my face when Joel and I are shooting together for fun and someone recognizes him from prior photography work project or simply from his social media persona who consistently posts some of the most incredibly captures of San Diego, especially in Coronado, but all over the region.

Joel’s support, mentorship and friendship with my photography come from a place of his natural teaching talent and his good heart that wants to see friends succeed and thrive. So, thank you, Joel, for being the amazing teacher and artist you are with your stunning eye for good shots and how to best capture them, and your technical savvy in production.

It’s so cool that people choose Coronado as their setting for important moments, like a marriage proposal. I was hired last week in early January 2023 by the intended groom to capture a surprise proposal to his girlfriend on the beach of the Hotel del Coronado. Photographing this surprise proposal was so much fun, like being a spy zooming in from a distance and pretending to take photos of other happenings as well. After she said yes, she was happy to have me take some formal portraits as well. I’ll be editing those this week. Here’s a video slide show I made of the candids from the stealth photography of the proposal: https://youtu.be/1xOcvN14tfs

Website: bit.ly/morriscrownmarketing

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/morriscrownmarketing

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/morris-crown-marketing/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/morriscrownmarketing

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@morriscrownmarketing

Other: https://vimeo.com/morriscrownmarketing https://julianeluskphotographyportfolio.shutterfly.com/

Image Credits
Just me, but the cover photo for my Best of Coronado picture is by Joel Ortiz, with his own watermark at the bottom.